Category Archives: Early Modern Paleography Society

Lunch Time Tips from our Transcribathon

Early Modern Paleography Society, Events, Folger Shakespeare Library, transcribathon, Transcribing
By Elaine Leong and Lisa Smith
The Folger transcribers.
The Folger transcribers.

 

Good morning and Welcome. First, a big shout-out to all participants of the second

annual EMROC transcribathon – Thank you for joining us today. At the Folger, the EMROC team (consisting of both EMROC members, Folger staff members and an enthusiastic group of students from University of North Carolina Charlotte, University ofTexas, Arlington and University of Colorado, Colorado Springs) have been typing away furiously for nearly three hours. We’re also joined by an active group of transcribers from all over the world–our latest statistics indicate that nearly 100 people have already logged-on to help create a transcription of the Castleton recipe book. Many hands make light work. We’re making wonderful progress!
Our big discoveries for the day so far include a thumbprint and layered efficacy marks (a circle with a cross and dots). More on that soon…
But there are a few tips for encoding that you should probably know about.
  1. Don’t forget to include page numbers.
  2. Mark recipe titles as headers (hd).
  3. Mark the layered efficacy marks as ‘cross in circle’ and ‘dot’ using the metamark (mrk).
  4. Remember to save — a lot!
If you’re just joining us, please focus on pages that have had no or only one or two transcribers. See our earlier post from today for tips on finding easy pages or culinary or
medical recipes.
And do tweet us, or post on our Facebook page, if you find anything exciting, or have any questions.

The 1st Annual EMPS Transcribathon

Early Modern Paleography Society, Events, Folger Shakespeare Library, Posts, transcribathon, , , ,

 

Screen Shot 2016-04-05 at 1.30.15 PM

The officers of the Early Modern Paleography Society at UNC Charlotte have been (very) busily preparing for our first annual EMPS Transcribathon!

The Transcribathon will take place on Friday, April 8th, 2016 from 10 am – 3 pm EDT. Our main headquarters will be on the campus of UNC Charlotte, in the Student Union rooms 340C&F, but if you can’t make it to Charlotte, we’d love for you to participate remotely! As of right now, we have transcribers planning to participate both nationally and internationally – from Colorado Springs to Berlin!

Our main goal is to completely transcribe an anonymous 18th century manuscript recipe book that the Folger has set aside for us. We’ll need all the help we can get, so we welcome all participation, whether it’s for the entire day or just half an hour.

We also have various activities planned throughout the day to attract potential new transcribers: there will be games, transcription sprints, and prizes, as well as a panel discussion about the importance of transcription, early modern recipes, and what it’s like to grow ingredients and cook from the recipes we transcribe (among other topics) with panelists from UNC Charlotte, UC Colorado Springs, and UNC Chapel Hill. We’ll also have plenty of coffee and snacks throughout the day and will be meeting afterwards for a wine social at the Wine Vault across the street from campus.

In preparation for the event, our university greenhouse grew angelica, seen below in its abundance:

Angelica

And we got together to candy the angelica for the event, so if you come, you’ll be able to taste:

AngelicaCooking

Angelica2Cooking

If you have any questions or would like to circulate our flyer to your contacts who might like to participate, feel free to send me an email: bward30@uncc.edu.

You can also stay up-to-date on the happenings by “liking” our page on Facebook (facebook.com/empsociety) and following us on Twitter (@empsociety)! Or, for the event, you can use #empstranscribathon2016.

Transcribing Teamwork

Early Modern Paleography Society, Folger Shakespeare Library, Graduate Students, Posts, transcribathon,

By Kailan Sindelar
Graduate Student, UNC Charlotte

It’s a rule of mine that I travel with as little technology as I think is appropriate. It’s a rule that has kept me from being distracted by day-to-day electronic procrastinations and responsibilities when I am in a new, exciting place. Without thinking twice, I left my laptop at home and headed out to Washington DC with my fellow grad students from UNC Charlotte. It wasn’t until we were somewhere in Virginia that I realized I might actually need my own laptop for the Transcribathon. Having never been to the Folger Shakespeare Library before, I had pictured a library much our own campus (which offers a large number of laptops for rent). Since this was not the case when I arrived to the Transcribathon, Robin Kello was kind enough to let me transcribe with him. Unfortunately, I’m afraid I became quite the handicap when we started doing Sprint competitions. Poor Robin was considerate enough to let me confirm his transcriptions before committing them to the keyboard. While we certainly weren’t the fastest transcribers as a team, we did make a good team.

As we went through transcribing together, during a sprint or not, we collaborated on every word. We took extra care to confirm or question each other’s initial interpretations of the handwriting. We also shared surprise at recipes that took a turn for the unexpected. Sheapshead Puddin was our favorite. It’s a recipe that sounds so colloquial, yet obviously from a foreign time. The kind of collaboration and mutual enjoyment from encountering the unexpected is exactly the kind of experience we strive for in our meetings in the Early Modern Paleography Society, which is a transcription club we have created on campus. While our mutual collaboration may not be fast, it allows us to compare impressions and learn how our peers interpret the same handwriting that we see. Transcribing in group allows us to learn with each other and share our reactions to what we transcribe. Watching, and being a part of, the mass collaboration that took place at the Transcribathon was inspiring. Our group walked away happy and encouraged by the amount of work that can be accomplished when so many people collaborate.

The Community of the Transcribathon

Early Modern Paleography Society, Folger Shakespeare Library, Graduate Students, Posts, Rebeckah Winche,

By Breanne Weber
MA Student, UNC Charlotte

A few weeks ago, an international community gathered together with one purpose: to transcribe a 17th-century recipe book. I was one of the graduate students from UNC Charlotte fortunate enough to travel to Washington, D.C. to participate in the Transcribathon on-site at the Folger Shakespeare Library. It was an incredible experience for me, especially since I am particularly interested in early modern book history.

The thing that most astonished me about the Transcribathon was the sense of community. Though I am merely a second-year master’s student, I immediately felt at-home, welcomed with open arms by leading scholars in their respective fields.
The atmosphere in the basement room at the Folger was charged with excitement. It was by no means a solitary experience: the room was filled with transcribers exclaiming over delicious recipes (like cheesecake and butter-filled pancakes), reading aloud tweets from transcribers at remote locations, and deliberating over nearly illegible or really strange words or phrases (“does this recipe really call for an ounce of unburied man’s skull?”). Though we each transcribed individually, there was certainly a communal sense of purpose and an excitement about our work. Even the transcription sprints, while creating some competition among transcribers, fostered the community – we all worked in unison on the same page and later projected our transcriptions on the screen, each person taking a turn to read a line and see our communal progress.

The best part of the day, though, was when Dr. Heather Wolfe, the manuscript curator at the Folger, brought the Winche manuscript into the room. To see in-person the very pages we spent the entire day transcribing digitally was a surreal experience; we all gathered around the manuscript, asking questions and finding the pages that we had already transcribed. As Dr. Wolfe showed us the pages of the manuscript, our post-modern, technological world collided with the 17th century world of Rebeckah Winche in a very real way. It was almost as if Winche herself was present in the room with us.
I’m so grateful to have been given this opportunity to participate in the Transcribathon. The sense of connection and common purpose made transcription even more real and important to me than it already was. And, as a result of this amazing experience, the officers of the Early Modern Paleography Society (EMPS) have decided to host our own Transcribathon in the spring in order to provide an opportunity for others to experience this community like we have. These avenues for connection are so important to the work that we do. After all, that’s why recipes are so important: they bring people together.

Sheepeshead Pudden Chronicles, or, Adventures in Transcription

Early Modern Paleography Society, Folger Shakespeare Library, Graduate Students, Posts, Rebeckah Winche, transcribathon, ,

By Robin Kello
MA Student, UNC Charlotte

Fellow travelers in transcription and compatriots in the paleographic arts, allow me to share a short tale.

After the October transcribathon at the Folger, a friend asked: “Why waste a day looking at old recipes?” Yes, dear readers, you may be astonished to hear it, but there are folks out there who fail to notice the magic of the early modern manuscript.

While I do not spend time criticizing his leisure pursuits – a certain recipe of hops, barley, yeast, water, and American football – I relished the opportunity to respond. I suggested that beyond the political, ethical, and scholarly reasons to do the good work of transcription, there is joy to be found in what Amy Tigner refers to on this blog as “the treasures of the book.” The adventure of the transcribathon – our transatlantic, cross-century colloquy with Rebeckah Winche – engenders community and occasions discovery.

To transcribe Winche’s book is: to open a door that opens further doors into the past; to rethink environments both “natural” and cultural; to see a reflection of renaissance trade routes in the ingredients of remedies and recipes; to recognize an expression of the transmission of folk knowledge before the standardization of medicine; and to be given access to the views of early moderns who were not the poets and priests or sanctioned scribes and scholars of the realm, but the unofficial chronicles of the time. These recipes articulate methodologies of care, of how we used to sustain and heal ourselves.

They also offer a toad’s leg in a silk satchel to be hung around the neck, the urine of a young boy, and various recipes for “Sheepesehead Pudden.” The single-word “Sheepeshead,” the “en” that resolves the substantive noun, and the double “d,” arching forward, as secretary hand will, toward the preceding word – this language and its world are both familiar and strange. Though I do not intend to par boyle the head of sheep to make a very fine pudding, I delight in the discovery, and share it with my companions.

Then we all partake in Winche’s marvelous book, triple-transcribed, viewed and vetted, fit for consumption, with the rest of the world. In 1715, 1815, or 1915, it was reserved for the fortunate few; in 2015, the web lets us give it to the world. The cutting edge of this cutting-edge scholarly endeavor is not just in its valuable interdisciplinary import, but in the democratic nature of the digital humanities.

I am immensely grateful to have been part of the transcribathon, to be a member of the Early Modern Paleography Society at UNC-Charlotte, and to explore these early modern recipes. It is not because I am especially skilled – in a sprint, I lag – I tremble at the vowel – but because of what we find in the encounter with Winche’s world. Get to the keyboard and stare down the vowel. The adventure continues, and the treasure is shared.